One of my favorite words is 'Agape'. Agape is the highest form of love there is, it's the kind of Love Jesus has for his Father and for us. Agape is sacrificial, selfless, and unconditional and Jesus was a perfect example of this when he died for our sins on the cross. He sacrificed his perfect, heavenly home with his father and became sin for us. He became the one thing that he despised the most so that we could live in heaven with him. That's Agape love.
John 15:12-13 reads "My command is this: Love each other as I have Loved you. Greater Love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." We don't often use the words 'Love' and 'death' in the same sentence but throughout the bible we see God putting those together quite often, so maybe he's trying to tell us something? If we are willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters in Christ, that would mean that we would think of them as better than ourselves. We would have to value their needs/wants more than our own and want what is best for them without giving ourselves a second thought. That is the definition of selfless, and selfless is used to define Agape.
John 13:35 says 'By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you LOVE ONE ANOTHER.' As we can see it is extremely important to God for us to love each other. When asked what the greatest commandment of the 10 were, Jesus replied, 'Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.' Mark 12:30-31. So I would say that if Jesus picked that one commandment out of all 10, shouldn't that give us some idea as to the importance of loving people?
It's really not easy to put others before yourself and in all honesty it really doesn't come naturally to anyone. It's something we have to put a lot of prayer, time and intentionality into. Prayer because we could never do it without God's help. Time because Loving others takes extra time and energy. Intentionality because it's something that we have to conscientiously think about and follow through with.
So here's my challenge to you and myself. Every morning when you wake up pray and ask God to help you love the people he put in your life and also the strangers you see at the mall or the grocery store or on the road. I can pretty much guarantee that by doing this your day will get a little bit better too!!
I hope y'all have an AMAZING day! God bless!!
